RIC Sergeant Daniel Maunsell

RIC Sergeant Daniel Maunsell (aged 49) from Tralee, Co. Kerry (Inchigeelagh/Lissardagh)

Date of incident: 21 Aug. 1920

Sources: CC, 24 Aug. 1920; FJ, 24 Aug. 1920; CCE, 28 Aug., 9 Oct. 1920; CWN, 28 Aug. 1920; II, 2 Oct. 1920; Weekly Summary of Outrages against the Police, Aug. 1920 (CO 904/148-50, TNA); RIC County Inspector’s Monthly Report, Cork West Riding, Aug. 1920 (CO 904/112, TNA); Daniel Harrington’s WS 1532, 6 (BMH); Timothy Dinneen’s WS 1585, 5-6 (BMH); John O’Mahoney’s WS 1662, 11 (BMH); William Powell’s WS 1699, 9 (BMH); Abbott (2000), 111-12; Ó hÉalaithe (2014), 86, 89, 155, 353; irishmedals.org (accessed 28 July 2014).

Note: Sergeant Maunsell was killed while returning to Macroom from his home at Inchigeelagh. Until shortly before his death he had been the head of the police barracks at Inchigeelagh. A police patrol returning from the scene of the attack on Maunsell was itself ambushed at Lissardagh, with the result that a number of other RIC men were wounded. Maunsell’s widow and children were later awarded £4,500 in compensation. See II, 2 Oct. 1920; CCE, 9 Oct. 1920. He had been a member of the RIC for twenty-nine years at the time of his death. Like many other members of the force, he had been a farmer earlier in life. See Abbott (2000), 111-12.

Maunsell had paid no attention to repeated warnings about his hyperactivity against local republicans. In his account of the Inchigeelagh Volunteers, the former battalion commander Dr. Patrick O’Sullivan recalled: ‘The pro-British sergeant [at Inchigeelagh barracks], Daniel Maunsell, was considered to be the greatest threat to the local Volunteers and to the local public at large. He was warned on several occasions by both the company and the battalion officers to scale down his anti-Irish activities, but to no avail. On 21 August 1920 he was shot dead at Creedon’s Hotel in the village.’ See Ó hÉalaithe (2014), 86.

Maunsell may not have been as immune to IRA pressure as some Volunteers thought, and his death exerted a considerable local impact. According to former Volunteer Daniel Harrington, after three members of the Inchigeelagh Company had shot Maunsell dead, ‘It subsequently transpired that Sergeant Monsell [sic] had actually handed in his resignation on the Saturday before he was shot. The garrison was evacuated a couple of days later. The same company, about the same time, burned down Glebe House, which at one time had been occupied by the military. Glebe House was a fine old mansion standing in its own grounds.’ See Daniel Harrington’s WS 1532, 6 (BMH).